South Korea approves first home-made Covid-19 vaccine

South Korean minister of food and drug safety Oh Yu-Kyoung speaks during a briefing in Cheongju, South Korea (Chun Kyung-hwan/Yonhap/AP)

Health officials in South Korea have approved the country’s first domestically developed Covid-19 vaccine for people aged 18 and over, adding another public health tool in the fight against the prolonged pandemic.

In clinical trials involving some 4,000 participants in South Korea and five other countries, SK Bioscience’s two-dose SKYCovione vaccine appeared to be more effective than the broadly used AstraZeneca jabs in building immunity against infections, officials at South Korea’s Food and Drug Safety Ministry said.